Native Son

Native Son

The three “books” that comprise the novel Native Son are titled “Fear”, “Flight”, and “Fate.” These titles define the content and scope of each of the three major sections of the novel. Write an expository essay in which you define and explain these three “books” within the novel. Identify how each of the subjects guide the reader toward the major themes of the novel “Native Son.”. Alternately, construct an argumentative essay in which you consider whether Bigger is constricted by these categories, and whether he might have had a chance to experience the opposite of each of these three conditions. There are several possibilities for this essay on “Native Son” and it can also be argued (although it might be a stretch, it would certainly be a challenge) that these topics for each of the three books take away from the important themes.

Asked by
Sona T #411550
on 12/21/2014 3:04 AM

Last updated by
Aslan
on 12/21/2014 3:32 AM

Answers
1

Bigger was always afraid of white society. It is not until he he commits his first crime against whites that he begins to loose his fear of white society. By killing Mary, Bigger begins to feel empowered. He sees this as an act of rebellion against a white society that has oppressed him since the day he was born.

The thought of what he had done, the awful horror of it...formed for him for the first time in his fear-ridden life a barrier of protection between him and a world he feared. He had murdered and had created a new life for himself. It was something that was all his own, and its was the first time in his life he had had anything that others could not take from him.

Instead of escape, Bigger sees his act of rebellion as a chance to take flight. He felt that this was a new beginning for him and that his life was in his hands and not controlled by the white elite. The last chapter is of course Bigger's fate. Although Bigger might have thought he was taking flight, his destiny lay only in the fate of a black man who has killed a white woman: the most unforgivable of crimes in the eyes of the white court.